The War Comes Home

I know the guy who talked too much. And the guy who prided himself on how much Red Bull he could drink.

I know what it feels like to climb into the belly of a Bradley, trying to make peace with the thought that at any minute it could run over a bomb.

Or maybe I was the one who missed talking to someone who knew. I had to stop myself. This wasn't about me.

"He looked thin," his dad said to me later. "It didn't feel real because it had been so long and I had been looking forward to it for so long. He was wearing KIA bracelets" with the names of friends who had died in Iraq. "And that hit me. That we were having a different kind of homecoming" compared to the first. "A good one, but it did remind me of all the other stuff that goes on."

Marianne added: "I was really worried because he was having nightmares and wasn't sleeping well over there. Doing the medevac was really hard on him. I was really worried that he would be not himself. But I'm relieved about the way he's handling all this bad stuff. He's growing up."

* * *

Andrew visited his grandparents and made a good effort to keep the conversation going. He carefully looked through the albums his grandfather had made from the photos Andrew had e-mailed home.

Then they left for the party. Andrew didn't wear his uniform. You can't drink a beer in your uniform, he said.

More than 100 people, mostly elderly, waved little American flags outside the country club. The mayor made a surprise appearance and gave a little speech. Andrew accepted the "Welcome homes" and the "God bless yous" and tried to answer "Is it really as bad as they say it is?" But war was not what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to chat with high school friends and tease the kids he used to babysit. He said thank you to each person. Then he sneaked out to the palm trees for a smoke with his best friend from high school.

"It was overwhelming," he told me after the party. "A lot of people trying to talk to me, congratulate me. I didn't really think I deserved congratulations." He said he knew the party was really for them -- the people holding the flags. For many of them, he is their only real connection to the war.

"This time I think he was in more danger on a constant basis, and this had a harder toll on me emotionally," his dad said to me. "And this time, a lot of close people were injured badly or killed. This is a much different scene than last time. And last time we didn't think he was going back again. But this time we know he might."

Andrew has re-upped for six more years. He and his parents assume he will be going back to Iraq, but they don't talk about it.